﻿21st Century Dating

These are all relationship related terms and questions which has only really emerged since the millennial dating scene began. The rise of social media has ignited a huge change in the world of dating. Technology has provided us with a variety of new ways to communicate with people which makes things easier but simultaneously more complicated when it comes to the world of dating.

Here are a few of the quirks that come with 21st century’s dating.

Trust:Going through phones. One of the greatest technological advances has been in the mobile phone, through these 4-5 inch devices we can be talking to a multitude of people at once. Now although this is great if you have family and friends abroad and you want to keep up with them, it can very dangerous for a relationship. I heard a woman say once that ‘the mobile phone is the gateway to cheating’ and as much as I believe that a cheater will cheat regardless, I do think that the access to social media apps e.g. Instagram, twitter, facebook etc make it a lot easier for guys to meet their next potential side chick. This inevitably causes trust issues, girls and GUYS find themselves checking their other halves phones to make sure there aren’t flirting or chatting to anyone else.

Promotion on social media:is it official if it hasn’t been posted? I think this topic could be a whole blog post on its own. A lot of people believe that if they’re bf/gf hasn’t posted them on snapchat, Instagram or twitter then it just isn’t official. I think this goes back to my point about trust. I believe that a lot of girls (this complies to guys as well) think that if you aren’t showing them on social media it’s because you don’t want other people to know you are exclusive, namely other girls. You want to appear as still available to everyone else so that you can still be approached or continue a relationship with a side piece. I personally think it’s a bit suspect if your other half doesn’t post you on social media at least once, especially if they are very active on these platforms and are happy to share other all other aspects of their life e.g. family and friends.

Superficiality: The tinder game. 1 in 5 relationships start online, this has been made possible by dating/hook-up apps such as tinder and websites like eharmony and match.com that gives you instant access to a plethora of potential suitors. In minutes we can be presented with a hundred men or women and have swiped left to about 97 of them. Tinder especially has become a massive hit since its release in 2012, with an average of 9.6 million daily users. Despite the impressive numbers I do think tinder can make you become desensitised to the fact that these are all real people, and in a given physical setting you could very much get along or form a connection with some of the people who superficially didn’t make the cut.

Language: texting etiquette and emojis. Unlike previous generations, we have constant access to potential bae’s, current bae, and ex bae’s. We tend to read a lot into what we call ‘texting etiquette’ involving important questions such as how long you should wait before replying to someone, whether they write in full sentences or shortened english, one’s use of emojis, and the infamous blue ticks. We tend to use questions like this as an indicators for important relationship questions such as how committed/interested someone is in us.